Never could get that with the few electrics I tried. And I used each of them for longer than a month.
What would take to make Safety Razors mainstream again?
- Thread starter fingerguy
- Start date
Never could get that with the few electrics I tried. And I used each of them for longer than a month.
Cartridge shaves work plenty fine for most people right out of the box, why would they change to a system with a steep learning curve?
DE blades are too cheap! Why sell Yugos when you can sell Cadillacs?
That's why all the multi-bladed cart razors came about. I can get almost six or seven shaves out of a good quality blade (Russian Yellows) so 100 last almost two years!
Obviously, outside of the USA DE shaving is alive and well just based on the cost. Look at where all the blades are being made.
I think DE shaving will remain a "gentleman's cult".
That's why all the multi-bladed cart razors came about. I can get almost six or seven shaves out of a good quality blade (Russian Yellows) so 100 last almost two years!
Obviously, outside of the USA DE shaving is alive and well just based on the cost. Look at where all the blades are being made.
I think DE shaving will remain a "gentleman's cult".
If they invent a DE razor that is easy to use and won't cut you.
That looks modern.
That is affordable.
That looks modern.
That is affordable.
I wonder how many people of the 30,000 + members on this forum are still active. Say 1,000 are active. I convert people once in a while to wet shaving. I actually just got a guard at the water plant I work at to get 2 DE razors. He really likes it. If each of us convert 3 people a year, and they convert a couple and so on. Ya know what I mean. I would rather have it hard to find vintage razors, and have more people wet shaving.
- Thread starter
- #26
Same reason I did:
1. Cost
2. Quality
3. Helping the environment anyway we can.
For me the main reason was what I was spending in cost and how many shaves I got out of them. One time, I tried to save money but getting a double blade knock off that was supposed to be just like one of the Schicks. Man talk about nick city. I was bleeding so bad you thought I was trying to commit suicide. I tossed those really quick. Then I bought the 3 blade knock offs, but it was killing me how much plastic I was putting in the garbage. So I was thinking for awhile on DE and then one weekend I go to Amish country with my family and come across an awesome knife store, and it turns out they had a shaving section.
Here I am a year later.
- Thread starter
- #27
Well there are other options as I am learning on this site. Granted this option I recently went with isn't the cheapest, I have to admit my face never looked better and I didn't need to mix a lather. I bought the stuff from "The Body Shop" and it was a piece of cake. Just as easy as the can jell stuff, but my face with how it looked after was like night and day versus what I was using before.
The thing is when people mention DE they instantly think about the mixing of lather; the fact is there are other choices for lather where you don't have to be spending 30 minutes just to shave. I spent tonight the same amount of time I spend with a can of jell and got so much better results. I am a changed man: the quality of lather DOES make a difference.
- Thread starter
- #28
A time machine.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
That would be a great selling point. DE shaving is a much more environmentally responsible way of shaving. (it would be a great selling point for straights, too, since zero blades are discarded.) The economic angle would help, too. A shave with a DE blade costs HOW much? A shave with a cart costs HOW much? You shave HOW many times in a year? How many beers does that buy? Then there is a nostalgia angle, too.
A few prominent guys coming out as DE shavers would definitely help, though. A few rap or metal musicians, maybe. Sports figures. Actors. Educate the YOUNG, who have not shaved with cartridges or blue plastic handles for the last 30 years. Let them see some of their role models using DE razors, both vintage and also some of the rather nice looking current production razors. Same for straights, for that matter. Converting baby boomers who came of age with the Trac II will generally be much more difficult.
Apart from making blades more available, though, I don't see wider use of DEs (or straights) as an advantage for us as shavers/consumers. The prices for vintage razors will skyrocket if they come back into mainstream use.
+1 There have been a lot of great points on this topic, & I agree with them. But for me, this is the biggest. It's all about the almighty $$. If it were in any way profitable for Big Biz, DE razors would come back in a heartbeat. But it's not, and it never will again, since America's been conditioned to accept the outrageous price of plastic replacement blades.
Interesting note - I read, I think it was in Time, how other parts of the world like India, who still use DEs, are considered "backward"! How is shelling out unheard of $$s for cheap plastic replacements "forward"??
Ultimately, companies won't make $$ selling quality razors that have the craftmanship to last for 100 yrs and DE blades to go in them that cost pennies, because, as any business major will tell you, ain't no profit in that.
- Thread starter
- #33
I disagree. I don't know why so many are saying it takes longer; it doesn't for me. In fact I probably spent the most amount of time on electric shavers (after using it for several months/years) for I never could get the shave I wanted from it so I would be in front of the TV at times shaving. When it was over I still wasn't smooth and my face was really irritated. With DE or cartridge I take the same amount of time as if I were to use my Mach3 or/and Fusion. I really don't understand why it takes longer for others.
Granted if you want perfection then maybe in that case I guess depending on the steps you take that would take longer. But I am no male model (granted I am not bad looking either...LMAO) but still, I use the stuff I got from "The Body Shop" instead of the can. Swipe swipe, switch/rotate, swipe swipe, rinse real well, repeat. That's how I do it now, thanks for previous threads, and the new lather I am using is a huge contributor on the quality and I am spending no extra time as when I was using my Mach3 and Fusion.
Come to think of it, I need to find those Mach3 and Fusion handles and toss them. Make more room for other stuff in my bathroom for I will never go back to that. EVER!
Last edited:
I prefer to think of it as employing the correct amount of technology to accomplish a given task.
I don't know what it would take, but I don't think it ever will go mainstream. I think that forums such as this demonstrate that there's a place for it. After I started, I told my uncle that I had made the switch and he mentioned that he'd stopped using his DEs because he thought that you couldn't get blades anymore. I set him up with a 100-blade sampler and he's been a happy camper ever since.
Were we talking about this 30 years ago, I'd say the barber shop would be the place to evangelize the benefits, but almost nobody goes to a barber shop anymore, and most barbers don't give straight shaves anymore, so there's no place to talk about the stuff.
Men aren't ones that are drawn in by spas, in general, and even though there's been a lot of advancement in mens-oriented skin care products, shaving isn't really discussed outside of maybe the row of sinks at one's athletic club. Really, the power of the schick and gillette ads and the way drugstore shelf space is so hotly contested, there's not much room for DEs to even make a side-by-side appearance with the other offerings.
So, I think it ain't ever going to be mainstream. That's okay, though. It also means that it won't lose the cool factor.
My $.02
-- Chet
Were we talking about this 30 years ago, I'd say the barber shop would be the place to evangelize the benefits, but almost nobody goes to a barber shop anymore, and most barbers don't give straight shaves anymore, so there's no place to talk about the stuff.
Men aren't ones that are drawn in by spas, in general, and even though there's been a lot of advancement in mens-oriented skin care products, shaving isn't really discussed outside of maybe the row of sinks at one's athletic club. Really, the power of the schick and gillette ads and the way drugstore shelf space is so hotly contested, there's not much room for DEs to even make a side-by-side appearance with the other offerings.
So, I think it ain't ever going to be mainstream. That's okay, though. It also means that it won't lose the cool factor.
My $.02
-- Chet
Don't toss 'em yet . . . leave them to your grandkids. In 40 years they will be selling like hotcakes on the internet!!
Similar threads
